The owner of Berkeley’s legendary Chez Panisse, a restaurant known for using organic, locally sourced ingredients, Waters shared her experiences in promoting good nutrition and healthy living — and complimented Bradley Elementary School in Denver for its student-tended garden.

“I’ve seen a lot of gardens at a lot of schools, and a lot of cafeterias trying to improve the food that they serve,” Waters said. “But never have I seen one like this. It provides enough fruit and vegetables to feed all of the students enrolled there, with some extra for the kids to take home.”

Sixteen years ago, Waters, through her Chez Panisse Foundation, also started the Edible Schoolyard, a 1-acre garden at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School.

The interesting thing about Edible Schoolyard, she said, is that it has become the center of the school. The students don’t just grow things in the the garden, they learn lessons in chemistry, engineering and cooking. They also use it as a gathering place.

“It’s not some Berkeley aberration, or some radical new form of home economics,” she said. “There have been real changes in disposition and willingness to learn. The kids are developing an aversion to junk food, they are becoming more engaged by meeting in the garden to socialize or do homework. They’re also connecting with something deep inside themselves that they had been longing for — even though they may not even have known they were longing for it.”

Food, Waters also told her Denver audience, “is central to making our lives better. If we place it at the center of our existence — where we eat, what we eat, why we eat — suddenly we are alive in new ways and good health happens without us even thinking about it.”

Waters got to sample quite a bit of healthy Colorado cuisine during her visit.

The night before the luncheon, Karen and Steve Leaffer opened their Cherry Hills Village home for a VIP reception that had Waters and four of Denver’s top chefs whipping up samples of locally sourced food.

Beets may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but fans of the root vegetable were in heaven when they sank their teeth into the beet salad entree prepared by Epicurean Catering. Photo: Joanne Davidson, The Denver Post

Waters also spoke to a group of slow food enthusiasts at Denver Botanic Gardens, enjoying lunch en route at Potager.